Well, if you asked Mike Malone and his wife Billie they would tell you that not all pizzas are created equal and that it takes fresh ingredients to make a pie that stands above the rest.

When it comes to making pizza the Malones have done it all in their 25 years of combined experience in the business, so when the couple recently had the opportunity to open their own pizzeria they jumped on it.

In December Mike and Billie opened Charlie’s Pizza in Shepherdsville, determined to offer pizza unlike any other in Bullitt County.

“It’s not like anything around here,” Mike Malone said.

“It’s a southern style pizza, like you’d find in mom and pop joints in the South...our pizza is very unique”

It’s rare to find a pizzeria where the ingredients are made from scratch on site, but the Malones are serious about pizza and they would have nothing premade in their pizzas, settling for nothing less than the best.

Every pizza from Charlie’s Pizza is prepared with dough made from scratch on site and hand rolled, made with real cheese, fresh cut toppings and a signature sauce cooked from the secret recipe that was passed to the Malones by Billie’s grandfather who got it from a local pizzeria in Georgia where Billie grew up.

Mike and Billie won’t share the recipe, but they’re proud to share the sauce; a rich, but not overpowering, sweet and savory concoction that could stand alone.

Mike’s experience in the pizza business began when he worked at Papa John’s Pizza in Shepherdsville.

In 1992 Mike moved to Georgia with his wife and together they opened a Dominos Pizza franchise, which they owned for three years before moving back to Kentucky.

After a hiatus from the pizza business, the Malones considered opening another pizzeria for years but the timing never seemed right.

Last year everything fell into place when they found a location in Shepherdsville formerly occupied by Domino’s Pizza.

As a Bullitt native, Mike wanted to open his family pizzeria in his home county and with him and his family living in Mount Washington opening in Shepherdsville seemed like the right thing to do.

“It’s where we live and where we wanted to do business,” he said.

Charlie’s Pizza, which is named for Billie’s nickname, Charlie, derived from her middle name, Charlene, is family owned and operated by Mike, Billie and their two teenage sons Jason and Patrick.